In 1970, curator Jack Burnham debuted the lavish exhibition "Software" at the Jewish Museum in New York. Coneptual artists displayed information-oriented pieces, while technical experts deployed computers, image-making, and multimedia technology in their works. Burnham´s goal was to showcase contemporary techniques of computer-based command and control, allowing viewers to respond in real time to the "programmatic situations" artist presented. While critics dismissed "Software" as a technical and aesthetic disaster, today it stands as a touchstone for efforts to integrate technology with artmaking. This article takes us back to Software´s gallery spaces and Burnham´s aim of showcasing the potential of interactivity and "real-time-systems." More broadly, it situates "Software" as a provocation to a public unfamiliar with computer technology yet at the threshold of a new postindustrial era, where the power and performative aspects of computing would predominate.

• Schlagwörter
  Computertechnik, Ausstellung, Gesellschaft, Postindustrielle Gesellschaft, Multimedia, Technologie